AMANDA STAVELEY has suggested Newcastle United will make a fresh attempt to sign Sven Botman in the summer – and claimed the Dutch centre-half wants to move to Tyneside from Lille.

Newcastle made a number of attempts to sign Botman during the January transfer window, with multiple sources suggesting the Magpies hierarchy lodged a series of offers, culminating in a final bid of around £30m.

However, Lille officials refused to sell, resulting in Newcastle’s recruitment team looking elsewhere and eventually agreeing a deal for centre-half Dan Burn, who joined from Brighton.

Provided they retain their Premier League status this season, Newcastle will look to strengthen again in the summer, with Botman once again expected to be on their wanted list.

Speaking to The Athletic, Staveley said: “We were 19th going into the window. So we had that, an illiquid market and the complexity of Covid-19, which meant clubs didn’t want to sell because they didn’t know where their squads would end up.

“We had to encourage players – ‘We’ll be a safe place for you, we’ll deliver and grow’. Some desperately wanted to come to us, like Sven, who still does very much and has talked very openly about that.

“Coming through all that showed us we can do it, that we can stick to our plan and if we get criticised on the last day for, ‘Oh, you’re going after Jesse (Lingard)’, well, Jesse wanted to come to us.

“We did everything. We never stopped. From the start to the finish, we did not stop working.”

Newcastle brought in five players in January – Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood, Bruno Guimaraes, Matt Targett and Burn – and will continue to look to grow and develop in the summer.

Co-owner Mehrdad Ghodoussi has confirmed there will be further spending in the close season, with Financial Fair Play regulations providing the only limits to the club’s ambition in the transfer market.

Ghodoussi said: “(We are only limited) in the sense of FFP. This summer is going to be important for us. Are we going to bring in five players, two players, one? We don’t know.

“We’ll look at what the squad requires, we’ll look at the market and act accordingly. We don’t have any limitations in terms of what we can do until we hit FFP. We want to create a sustainable club.”